Modern wars

[Rostere]

I believe that a lot of the problems in today's advanced weapons industry might come from that too much of the design is carried out internally by the same companies. If you take one tank or aircraft and then break down the components, it is my impression that they are often overwhelmingly produced by the same companies, despite being very different areas of technology. This might lead to a lot of cost inefficiency and technology lag, when you could have one company which only does targeting and visual identification systems, one which does only ECW, one which does only armour, one which does only communication systems, and so on and so forth (and these companies may of course sell civilian products as well). This is made even worse when countries insist on buying internally from within their own country. I think what the EU would really need is a very competitive internal market for each of the sub-systems which make up a tank or aircraft, and that the countries allow themselves to buy components from other EU countries if they are better.

 

Today I think engines and guns (and missiles) are pretty much the only parts of military aircraft and tanks which are typically purchased separately from the vehicle itself, right?

[Agiel]

It largely depends. In the case of a modern Leopard 2A6, the working hull, turret, and engine is produced by KMW, though the gun is made by Rheinmetall AG, with the IVIS, optronics, and fire control system made by Thales. Since the end of the Cold War I think there's greater willingness to accept outside technologies into platforms (definitely a far cry from the cutthroat espionage affairs between companies to be sure). Right now there's competition between Northrop Grumman and Raytheon for the new AESA radar suite for the F-16 (made by Lockheed Martin).

[Rostere]

It largely depends. In the case of a modern Leopard 2A6, the working hull, turret, and engine is produced by KMW, though the gun is made by Rheinmetall AG, with the IVIS, optronics, and fire control system made by Thales. Since the end of the Cold War I think there's greater willingness to accept outside technologies into platforms (definitely a far cry from the cutthroat espionage affairs between companies to be sure). Right now there's competition between Northrop Grumman and Raytheon for the new AESA radar suite for the F-16 (made by Lockheed Martin).

 

Yeah. I'm not really knowledgeable enough on the subject, and there's bound to be both good and bad examples. It's just a feeling I good from reading some threads on a military aviation forum a couple of months back. I saw a lot of companies with impossibly broad portfolios of products.

 

What about the parts in the F-35? And the Sukhoi PAK FA? I have the feeling that a company that is supposed to construct all the parts of such a modern aircraft risks getting very bloated and unfocused, organizationally speaking. The buyers of military hardware should be adamant in insisting on maximum modularity and not lock themselves into being forced from buying more parts than ideal at the moment from one designer.

[Agiel]

Boeing (the losers of the JSF selection program with their X-32) was at one point invited by LockMart to participate in improving upon the X-35. They less than kindly declined and are currently working on their own not necessarily competitors but certainly parallels in the form of upgraded F-15Cs and F/A-18E/F Superhornets with AESA radars (actually more powerful than the one on the F-22, having been developed later) and the E/A-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft.

 

Part of why the F-35 project seems so bloated is due to how the program is attempting to replace three different airframes in service (the AV-8 Harrier, the F-16, and the F/A-18) and to satisfy the requirements of three different services in the US military alone as well as the militaries of over a dozen partner nations, however in the end due to economies of scale I believe down the line ~10-20 years parts commonality and service interoperability is eventually going to vindicate the cost (adjusted for inflation and held up to the combined development costs of the above, the F-35 might seem like the deal of the century). Besides, there's stuff on the F-35 that even F-22 pilots* can only dream of like a superior AESA radar, EOTS targeting pod, SEAD/DEAD and electronic attack capability, and the EODAS (actually made by Northrop Grumman) that has the potential to revolutionise air to air combat as we know it. Combined, Marine Corps test pilots have said that they've only scratched the surface of what this all means for how they will do their jobs.

 

As for Russian military hardware virtually all of their military aircraft design and production has been consolidated into a single company (Sukhoi) as well as their armoured vehicle production into Uralvagonzavod (since the Omsk factory that was slated to upgrade T-80s went bust, and the former Soviet Union's other big tank producer being in Ukraine). In fact development of variants of the MiG-29 and the MiG-31 now fall under Sukhoi's purview following the collapse of the Soviet Union. As for what that all means, I think it leaves them trying to do too much with too little, upgrading existing airframes, ensuring the ones that are already in service are airworthy, and producing 5th-generation aircraft with a fraction of the budget they had in the Cold War. I've been of the opinion were it not for the Indians, the Russian Air Force would have been flying Saab JAS-39 Gripens and Dassault Rafales alongside their Su-27s (in fact they're closer to that than some might think with the Mistral helicopter carrier sale from France going ahead, thermal imagers license-built from Thales, and training simulators from Rheinmetall).

 

*These are planned to be implemented on the F-22 as part of mid-service life upgrades.

[Malcador]

Ok Agiel, how much is Lockheed paying you ?

 

Heh, up here the F-35 project is catching flak due to the cost overruns and still debates on whether or not Canada needs it vs an upgraded F-18, Rafale, Gripen, etc. (think those are the only ones marked as alternatives in discussions).  Mainly along lines of not being a two engine plane and it being overkill for what the RCAF is expected to do. 

[Agiel]

Guy has to pay off student loans somehow

 

In all seriousness, though the F-35 objectively speaking is perhaps the most expensive procurement program for a single platform in the history of arms production and has had its share of cost overruns, overruns have been so endemic of the field such that it would be easier to count the programs that did not experience them. If this was indicative of the success of eventual success of the F-35, then we could almost as easily say the Buluva ballistic missile was as big of a boondoggle for the Russian Navy. I 'm just sick of uninformed pundits (or even informed ones whose ideas have long since been rendered irrelevant) claiming it to be a $100 million jalopy against the claims of actual pilots, engineers, and planners.

 

I cannot speak for the RCAF's needs. Canada has little in the way of foreign commitments and is unlikely to face air forces with even half of their current capabilities, short of a large-scale conventional war breaking out between NATO and coalition partners and the likes of China and Russia in the near future, eventualities that remain unlikely to the extreme (however that does not exclude proxy states purchasing more modern systems, though if they could buy them in operationally significant numbers is a different matter altogether). However, if Boeing doesn't catch a break with the Superhornet and the Growler it's probable that the RCAF would be compelled to buy a greater proportion of F-35s as a result of the potential loss of F/A-18 parts production capabilities.

[Malcador]

Well give them some leeway. Natural to be skeptical when told a hugely expensive project will pay for itself and more in the future. I would still keep the A10 over it but I guess tanks aren't the issue in the future.

[Walsingham]

I don't think the F35 is a bad plane. I just think the idea of manned planes is grossly outdated. Manned planes are to our era what battleships were to the 1930s.

[Gorgon]

I would think that there is a fundamental problem with that. What if someone hacks the guidance system.  You could win the war from a laptop. They would need to be autonomous, pre programmed before each engagement.

[Rostere]

I don't think the F35 is a bad plane. I just think the idea of manned planes is grossly outdated. Manned planes are to our era what battleships were to the 1930s.

 

What do you think about manned aerial drone carriers then?

[Walsingham]

 

I don't think the F35 is a bad plane. I just think the idea of manned planes is grossly outdated. Manned planes are to our era what battleships were to the 1930s.

 

What do you think about manned aerial drone carriers then?

 

 

Union issues?

 

I don't have justifications for everything I think.

[Agiel]

Funny you should say that. On the recommendation of a fellow Harpoon enthusiast and C:MANO developer, I picked up War Games by Thomas B. Allen. One of the most interesting things I picked up from it was in spite of the myth that the notional World War III would very quickly escalate into tactical and strategic nuclear exchanges, in simulated war games players showed a great deal of hesitation in using the nuclear option, such that they made sub-optimal decisions to avoid that scenario and continued to refuse to use nukes even when the situation screamed for it. In fact, the situation got so bad that eventually the moderators replaced human players with computers who were more than willing to press the big red button. This suddenly puts Ogarkov's theories on the automation of the C2 and reconnaissance-strike complexes in his "Revolution in Military Affairs" in harsher light.

Edited July 16, 2014 by Agiel

[Walsingham]

Not sure any situation screams out for nukes. except, you know, xenomorphs.

[Fighter]

I don't think the F35 is a bad plane. I just think the idea of manned planes is grossly outdated. Manned planes are to our era what battleships were to the 1930s.

 

Communication line and/or AI will always be a glaring vulnerability for any drone. Unless they invent Skynet.

[Walsingham]

 

I don't think the F35 is a bad plane. I just think the idea of manned planes is grossly outdated. Manned planes are to our era what battleships were to the 1930s.

 

Communication line and/or AI will always be a glaring vulnerability for any drone. Unless they invent Skynet.

 

 

The glaring 'weakness' in any democratic armed force is the risk of casualties. Hence drones.

[Agiel]

Of course the end goal is to improve automation of unmanned vehicles so as to remove the possibility of the enemy gaining control of hacking into them, as embodied by the US Navy's efforts with the X-47B UCAV, which would be able to autonomously detect, track, and engage hostiles with the only input from human operators being the "Master Arm" switch. Also, as the greatest strength of un-piloted combat craft is the lack of putting a human operator at risk, a great deal of effort has been put into reducing their costs as well as producing them with off-the-shelf technologies so no truly sensitive materials are compromised as a result of a shootdown. A fellow armchair military enthusiast even relayed to me an idea based somewhat on the ALARM anti-radiation missile of autonomous airborne anti-aircraft missiles with a turbofan first stage so that it can loiter a given airspace for a time, then once it detects a hostile aircraft, uses a second-stage rocket booster to guide to the target. We're closer to this concept than you might think with two-way data-link weapons like the TACTOM Tomahawk, JSOW-C1, Naval Strike Missile, and the LRASM:

 

http://youtu.be/LvHlW1h_0XQ

 

Ultimately, whether for better or for worse, I think Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander were on the money with their idea on what the warfighter of the far-flung future is: A single man in the field with a legion of networked robotic warfighters at his fingertips.

[Fighter]

The glaring 'weakness' in any democratic armed force is the risk of casualties. Hence drones.

 

 

There are no democratic armed forces.

 

You don't need to explain to me what drones are for. But AI is just not there yet and if your comms fail and you have no humans to do the job you're screwed.

[Walsingham]

 

The glaring 'weakness' in any democratic armed force is the risk of casualties. Hence drones.

 

 

There are no democratic armed forces.

 

You don't need to explain to me what drones are for. But AI is just not there yet and if your comms fail and you have no humans to do the job you're screwed.

 

 

If you're trying to make a joke about democracy within an armed unit, then you don't know about:

 

- How mercenaries work

- How the SAS (publicly say they) work

[Fighter]

 

If you're trying to make a joke about democracy within an armed unit, then you don't know about:

 

- How mercenaries work

- How the SAS (publicly say they) work

 

 

By this standard even the Soviet Union was a democracy because on some levels it worked that way too. But when push comes to shove it doesn't and neither does a military as a whole.

Edited July 19, 2014 by Fighter

[Walsingham]

 

 

If you're trying to make a joke about democracy within an armed unit, then you don't know about:

 

- How mercenaries work

- How the SAS (publicly say they) work

 

 

By this standard even the Soviet Union was a democracy because on some levels it worked that way too. But when push comes to shove it doesn't and neither does a military as a whole.

 

 

I'm unsure if you're missing the point deliberately.

 

Democractic nations have almost no appetite for taking casualties. It's arguably because democracies place a higher value on human life than non-democracies.

 

If you can't take casualties them you either have to pick fight with people who can't fight back, or come up with another way to fight.

[Malcador]

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/07/magic-helmet-for-f-35-ready-for-delivery/?comments=1

 

Fancy piece of kit, the "magic" helmet for the F-35.

[Agiel]

The famous USAF theorist and "Godfather" of the "Fighter Mafia" John Boyd had noticed that in spite of the MiG-15 being superior in several key respects of flight performance to the F-86 Sabre, F-86 pilots were able to achieve, by conservative estimates, near 2:1 exchange ratios against the MiG-15. Boyd concluded that this was due to two factors:

 

1. The F-86 used hydraulic controls where the MiG-15 had manual controls. That meant that the MiG-15 pilot had to exert considerably more effort to "yank and bank" than his counterpart in the F-86, which was especially counter-productive in prolonged engagements.

 

2. Most pertinently to the above article, the F-86 boasted superior out of ****pit visibility. At least seven times out of ten in air combat the reason a given pilot died was because he never knew the threat was there, as was iterated in the Ault Report (AKA Project RED BARON) conducted after the Vietnam War, which is also why Antoine de Saint Exupéry, himself a pilot, remarked that air combat was not necessarily the "knightly, chivalrous combat" as some might believe so much as it was murder.

 

The lesson: Success lay in being able to process your OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) loop faster than your opponent and using it to interfere with his.

Edited July 25, 2014 by Agiel

[Walsingham]

What you're saying to me is that human factors engineers are under-paid.

[Agiel]

I'm saying that's precisely it, one of the finest illustrations of this paradigm being the T-34 (which I mentioned earlier on this thread in fact):

 

http://www.operationbarbarossa.net/the-t-34-in-wwii-the-legend-vs-the-performance/

 

If the "big" points of protection and mobility and numbers truly decisively mattered, which the T-34 was advantaged in against nearly every other tank in the world at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, then it did not explain how crews and vehicles were lost in *droves* against woefully inadequate weapons. Poor visibility (and thus, situational awareness), poor inter-vehicle communications (until Lend-lease radios arrived, only platoon commanders had radios, and had to communicate with his subordinates using signal flags), and poor fire-control efficiency led to crews taking much, much longer to process their OODA loops as compared to their German counterparts.

 

Communications is key. Efficiency is key. Situational and tactical awareness is ESPECIALLY key. A point in which current F-35 pilots agree:

 

 

 

I’ve been asked to explain my experience a lot of times, and I’ve summarized it in a way that I think resonates with a lot of folks.  If you took a room full of fighter pilots, and asked them to whiteboard the list of capabilities they would like, what would be the result?

 

The list would include speed, turning performance, stealth, maneuverability, what have you.  But if you could only pick one, if you were limited to picking one characteristic, I would guarantee every fighter pilot in the room would pick is situational awareness.  A pilot armed with situational awareness, even if he didn’t have all the other capabilities that he wanted, is absolutely the most survivable and lethal pilot out there.

 

http://www.sldinfo.com/the-fifth-generation-experience-updated-the-f-35-is-a-situational-awareness-machine/

[Walsingham]

Great link. But I'm not sure about the final quote. The thing you want most isn't the thing you would have asked for at the start. It's the thing you don't have at the end.

 

Situation awareness is essential. But if you had it, and no way of hurting your target, or any way of moving around, you'd say that was most important.